1.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses

2.
History of Scotland
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The History of Scotland is known to have begun by the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10,000 years ago. Prehistoric Scotland entered the Neolithic Era about 4000 BC, the Bronze Age about 2000 BC, and the Iron Age around 700 BC. Scotlands recorded history began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, North of this was Caledonia, whose people were known in Latin as Picti, the painted ones. Constant risings forced Romes legions back, Hadrians Wall attempted to seal off the Roman south, the latter was swiftly abandoned and the former overrun, most spectacularly during the Great Conspiracy of the 360s. As Rome finally withdrew from Britain, Gaelic raiders called the Scoti began colonizing Western Scotland, according to 9th- and 10th-century sources, the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata was founded on the west coast of Scotland in the 6th century. In the following century, the Irish missionary Columba founded a monastery on Iona and introduced the previously pagan Scoti, towards the end of the 8th century, the Viking invasions began. Successive defeats by the Norse forced the Picts and Gaels to cease their hostility to each other and to unite in the 9th century. The Kingdom of Scotland was united under the descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin and his descendants, known to modern historians as the House of Alpin, fought among each other during frequent disputed successions. England, under Edward I, would take advantage of the succession in Scotland to launch a series of conquests into Scotland. The resulting Wars of Scottish Independence were fought in the late 13th and early 14th centuries as Scotland passed back, Scotlands ultimate victory in the Wars of Independence under David II confirmed Scotland as a fully independent and sovereign kingdom. When David II died without issue, his nephew Robert II established the House of Stewart, ruling until 1714, Queen Anne was the last Stuart monarch. Since 1714, the succession of the British monarchs of the houses of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha has been due to their descent from James VI, during the Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Later, its decline following the Second World War was particularly acute. In recent decades Scotland has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector and the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas. Since the 1950s, nationalism has become a political topic, with serious debates on Scottish independence. People lived in Scotland for at least 8,500 years before Britains recorded history, glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BC. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an encampment near Biggar to around 8500 BC, numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers. The oldest house for which there is evidence in Britain is the structure of wooden posts found at South Queensferry near the Firth of Forth, dating from the Mesolithic period

3.
Kingdom of Scotland
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The Kingdom of Scotland was a state in northwest Europe traditionally said to have been founded in 843, which joined with the Kingdom of England to form a unified Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the third of the island of Great Britain. It suffered many invasions by the English, but under Robert I it fought a war of independence. In 1603, James VI of Scotland became King of England, in 1707, the two kingdoms were united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain under the terms of the Acts of Union. The Crown was the most important element of government, the Scottish monarchy in the Middle Ages was a largely itinerant institution, before Edinburgh developed as a capital city in the second half of the 15th century. The Scottish Crown adopted the conventional offices of western European courts, Parliament also emerged as a major legal institution, gaining an oversight of taxation and policy, but was never as central to the national life as its counterpart in England. In the 17th century, the creation of Justices of Peace, the continued existence of courts baron and the introduction of kirk sessions helped consolidate the power of local lairds. Scots law developed into a system in the Middle Ages and was reformed and codified in the 16th and 17th centuries. Under James IV the legal functions of the council were rationalised, in 1532, the College of Justice was founded, leading to the training and professionalisation of lawyers. David I is the first Scottish king known to have produced his own coinage, Early Scottish coins were virtually identical in silver content to English ones, but from about 1300 their silver content began to depreciate more rapidly than the English coins. At the union of the Crowns in 1603 the Scottish pound was fixed at only one-twelfth the value of the English pound, the Bank of Scotland issued pound notes from 1704. Scottish currency was abolished by the Act of Union, Scotland is half the size of England and Wales in area, but has roughly the same length of coastline. Geographically Scotland is divided between the Highlands and Islands and the Lowlands, the Highlands had a relatively short growing season, which was further shortened during the Little Ice Age. From Scotlands foundation to the inception of the Black Death, the population had grown to a million, following the plague and it expanded in the first half of the 16th century, reaching roughly 1.2 million by the 1690s. Significant languages in the kingdom included Gaelic, Old English, Norse and French. Christianity was introduced into Scotland from the 6th century, in the Norman period the Scottish church underwent a series of changes that led to new monastic orders and organisation. During the 16th century, Scotland underwent a Protestant Reformation that created a predominately Calvinist national kirk, there were a series of religious controversies that resulted in divisions and persecutions. The Scottish Crown developed naval forces at various points in its history, Land forces centred around the large common army, but adopted European innovations from the 16th century, and many Scots took service as mercenaries and as soldiers for the English Crown

4.
Monarch
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A monarch is the sovereign head of state in a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power in the state, alternatively, an individual may become monarch by conquest, acclamation or a combination of means. A monarch usually reigns for life or until abdication, if a young child is crowned the monarch, a regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. A monarch can reign in multiple monarchies simultaneously, for example, the monarchy of Canada and the monarchy of the United Kingdom are separate states, but they share the same monarch through personal union. Monarchs, as such, bear a variety of titles — king or queen, prince or princess, emperor or empress, archduke, duke or grand duke, Prince is sometimes used as a generic term to refer to any monarch regardless of title, especially in older texts. A king can also be a husband and a queen can be a kings wife. If both people in a reign, neither person is generally considered to be a consort. Monarchy is political or sociocultural in nature, and is associated with hereditary rule. Most monarchs, both historically and in the present day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, agnatic seniority, Salic law, etc. In an elective monarchy, the monarch is elected but otherwise serves as any other monarch, historical examples of elective monarchy include the Holy Roman Emperors and the free election of kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In recent centuries, many states have abolished the monarchy and become republics, advocacy of government by a republic is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchy is called monarchism. A principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of national leadership. In cases where the monarch serves mostly as a ceremonial figure real leadership does not depend on the monarch, a form of government may in fact be hereditary without being considered monarchy, such as a family dictatorship. Monarchies take a variety of forms, such as the two co-princes of Andorra, positions held simultaneously by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgel and the elected President of France. Similarly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia is considered a monarch despite only holding the position for five years at a time, hereditary succession within one patrilineal family has been most common, with preference for children over siblings, sons over daughters. Other European realms practice one form or another of primogeniture, whereunder a lord was succeeded by his eldest son or, if he had none, by his brother, the system of tanistry was semi-elective and gave weight also to ability and merit. The Salic law, practiced in France and in the Italian territories of the House of Savoy, in most fiefs, in the event of the demise of all legitimate male members of the patrilineage, a female of the family could succeed. Spain today continues this model of succession law, in the form of cognatic primogeniture, in more complex medieval cases, the sometimes conflicting principles of proximity and primogeniture battled, and outcomes were often idiosyncratic

5.
David II of Scotland
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David II was King of Scots from 1329 until his death, and the last male of the House of Bruce. Although David spent long periods in exile or captivity, he managed to resist English attempts to annex his kingdom, David II was the elder and only surviving son of Robert I of Scotland and his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh. He was born on 5 March 1324 at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, in accordance with the Treaty of Northamptons terms, David was married on 17 July 1328 to Joan of the Tower, daughter of Edward II of England and Isabella of France, at Berwick-upon-Tweed. David became King of Scots upon the death of his father on 7 June 1329, aged 5 years,3 months, David and his wife were crowned at Scone on 24 November 1331. During Davids minority, Sir Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray was appointed Guardian of Scotland by the Act of Settlement of 1318. After Morays death, on 20 July 1332, he was replaced by Donald, Earl of Mar, only ten days later Mar fell at the Battle of Dupplin Moor. Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, who was married to Christian and he was taken prisoner by the English at Roxburgh in April 1333 and was thence replaced as Guardian by Archibald Douglas, who fell at Halidon Hill that July. By December, however, Balliol was forced to flee to England, following the victory of this force at the Battle of Halidon Hill in July 1333, David and his wife were sent for safety into France, reaching Boulogne on 14 May 1334. They were received graciously by King Philip VI. In 1346, under the terms of the Auld Alliance, David invaded England in the interests of the French, after initial success at Hexham, David was wounded, and his army soundly defeated at the Battle of Nevilles Cross on 17 October 1346. David was captured and taken prisoner by Sir John de Coupland, David was transferred to Windsor Castle in Berkshire upon the return of Edward III from France. The depiction of David being presented to King Edward III in the play The Reign of King Edward the Third is fictitious, David and his household were later moved to Odiham Castle in Hampshire. His imprisonment was not reputed a rigorous one, although he remained in England for eleven years and this was ratified by the Scottish Parliament at Scone on 6 November 1357. David returned at once to Scotland, but, after a few years, owing to the poverty of the kingdom, it was found impossible to raise the ransom installment of 1363. David then made for London and sought to get rid of the liability by offering to bequeath Scotland to Edward III or one of his sons in return for a cancellation of the ransom, David did this with the full awareness that the Scots would never accept such an arrangement. He remarried about 20 February 1364, Margaret Drummond, widow of Sir John Logie and he divorced her about 20 March 1370. Margaret, however, travelled to Avignon and made an appeal to the Pope to reverse the sentence of divorce which had been pronounced against her in Scotland. She was still alive in January 1375, from 1364, David governed with vigour, dealing firmly with recalcitrant nobles and wider baronial revolt, and continued to pursue the goal of final peace with England

6.
Perth
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Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with a population of 2.06 million living in Greater Perth. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the central business district. Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The citys population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australias involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for operating in the Pacific Theatre. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, Aboriginal people have inhabited the Perth area for 38,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological remains at Upper Swan. The Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia and lived as hunter-gatherers, the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain were particularly important to them, both spiritually and as a source of food. The Noongar people know the area where Perth now stands as Boorloo, Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagongas group, one of several based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar. The judgment was overturned on appeal, the first documented sighting of the region was made by the Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh and his crew on 10 January 1697. The British colony would be officially designated Western Australia in 1832, Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, said that Perth was as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed. On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship, Sulphur. The only contemporary information on the source of the name comes from Fremantles diary entry for 12 August, Murray was born in Perth, Scotland, and was in 1829 Secretary of State for the Colonies and Member for Perthshire in the British House of Commons. The town was named after the Scottish Perth, in Murrays honour, the racial relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans were strained due to these happenings. Because of the amount of building in and around Boorloo

7.
Edward Balliol
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Edward Balliol was a claimant to the Scottish throne. With English help, he ruled parts of the country in three periods between 1332 and 1336. He was the eldest son of John Balliol, erstwhile King of the Scots, and Isabella de Warenne, daughter of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, Alice was daughter of Hugh X de Lusignan and Isabella of Angoulême, widow of John, King of England. Taking advantage of this, Edward Balliol, backed by Edward III of England, defeated the Regent, the Earl of Mar, at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in Perthshire. He was crowned at Scone in September 1332, but three months later he was forced to flee half-naked back to England, following an attack by nobles loyal to David II at the Battle of Annan. On his retreat from Scotland, Balliol sought refuge with the Clifford family, land owners in Westmorland, and stayed in their castles at Appleby, Brougham, Brough and he was restored by the English in 1333, following the Battle of Halidon Hill. Balliol then ceded the whole of the formerly known as Lothian to Edward. With no serious support in Scotland, he was deposed again in 1334, and restored again in 1335, all realistic hopes of Edwards restoration were lost when David II returned from France in June 1341. He returned to Scotland after the defeat of David II at Battle of Nevilles Cross in 1346, raising an insurrection in Galloway, however, he gained no permanent footing. On 20 January 1356, Balliol surrendered his claim to the Scottish throne to Edward III in exchange for an English pension and he spent the rest of his life living in obscurity. He died in 1367, at Wheatley, Doncaster, Yorkshire, the location of his grave is believed to be under a Doncaster Post Office. Ashley, W. J. Edward III and His Wars, calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland. The Book of the Illustrious Henries, london, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts. The Anonimalle Chronicle,1333 to 1381, scalacronica, The Reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III. Skene, William F. John of Forduns Chronicle of the Scottish Nation, balfour-Melville, E. M. W. Edward III and David II. England, Scotland and the Hundred Years War in the fourteenth century, in in J. R. Hale, J. R. L. Highfield, B. Europe in the Late Middle Ages, annals of Scotland, From the Accession of Malcolm III Surnamed Canmore to the Accession of Robert I. Edward III and the Scots, The Formative Years of a Military Career, paterson, R. C. Edward Balliol, in Military History, April,2003

8.
Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray
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Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray was an important soldier and diplomat in the Wars of Scottish Independence, who later served as regent of Scotland. Thomas was the son of another Thomas, who was Chamberlain of Scotland and Sheriff of Roxburgh, and it is known that the younger Thomas was the nephew of King Robert the Bruce, but it is uncertain which of Roberts sisters was his mother. The traditional view is that she was of the first marriage of Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, however it is now believed that the Kings father Robert married again after Marjories death and had with his second wife a daughter, Isabel, who married the elder Thomas. Thomas supported Robert in his attempt to take the throne, and was present at his uncles coronation in 1306 and he was probably knighted by the king then or shortly after. After the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Methven, he was prisoner by the English, coming first under the custody of Sir Adam Gordon. During his confinement he joined the English cause, and remained attached to them until he was captured by Sir James Douglas in 1308 and his defection came to the attention of Edward II of England, who forfeited all his lands, bestowing them on his favourite Hugh le Despencer. In 1312 Robert created him Earl of Moray, and he became ruler of a swathe of land in the north of Scotland. He was also lord of the Isle of Man, in exchange for a reddendo of six ships of 26 oars and 100 silver marks. Around this time he became one of Roberts most trusted lieutenants and his most famous achievement took place on 14 March 1314 when he carried out a daring attack on Edinburgh Castle. This was one of a handful of castles in Scotland still in English hands, amongst Morays men was William Francis, the son of a former governor of the castle, who knew of a secret path up the rock. Moray used this path to reach the castle, and successfully retook it for the Scots, in 1315 Moray accompanied Edward Bruce, the kings brother, during his invasion of Ireland. He was one of the leaders in the war against the English settlers in Ireland. He returned twice to Scotland during the war to obtain reinforcements, Morays name appears directly after Roberts on the famous Declaration of Arbroath, which was sent to the Pope by the nobles of Scotland to persuade him to recognise Scotland as an independent nation. Later, in 1324, he was sent to meet the Pope in person at his court in Avignon, at this meeting he successfully persuaded the Pope to recognise Robert as King of Scots. The next year the Pope wrote to Moray declaring his hope, Moray was again sent to France in 1325, this time to persuade King Louis X to sign the Treaty of Corbeil renewing the Franco-Scottish alliance, which he did successfully. After his return to Scotland he had a role in the Battle of Stanhope Park against the English. The English suffered a defeat, and were forced to sign the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton. During the Kings final years, Moray had been a constant companion, before his death, Robert decreed that Moray would serve as regent for David, who was only five years old when he succeeded as king

Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray (c. 1278 – 20 July 1332) was an important soldier and diplomat in the Wars of Scottish …

Memorial to the Earl of Moray at Edinburgh Castle

Earl Thomas's coat of arms consisted of three cushions within a double tressure. The symbolism of the cushions is not known, but they may have represented wealth and luxury. The tressure was added by Thomas to show his royal connection: the same symbol appeared on King Robert's arms